New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Tuesday said Anwar Ali is free to play football until the All India Football Federation takes a final call on him. The court said this while hearing a petition filed by Ali challenging the AIFF's order preventing him from plying his trade in the game due to a rare heart condition.
"The petition has been disposed of with the direction that the AIFF letter on September 7, by which he was stopped from training, that will no longer prevent him from playing and training with any other club he chooses, subject to the final decision of the committee whenever it comes," the court said. "If the committee decides against the petitioner, the court has given the petitioner the liberty to challenge the decision."
Anwar Ali surprising everyone filed the petition against the AIFF and its medical team as they sent a letter to Mohammedan Sporting on September 7 urging them to not allow him to train with them in I-League Qualifiers or any future tournaments.
Ali, 20, has been diagnosed with a rare heart condition known as apical hypercardio myopathy (HCM). The diagnosis was made in Mumbai last year while he was playing in the Indian Super League (ISL), and then confirmed last November by experts at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Rennes, France. They later reached a consensus and stated that: the level of risk to Ali, in normal conditions and at his age, was low but the risk rose.
